Science confirms I’m an improbable cocktail of Viking, Phoenician and Arabian ancestry, apparently 🙃 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Ever wonder what happens when you fall into a black hole? youtu.be/chhcwk4-esM?...

Finalizing my pop public talk about modeling for #ComplexSystems, #DigitalTwins, #ClimateChange. A journey covering nearly 6,000 years, from Helios’s sun to Thor’s thunders, from the Tiangou to chatGPT. Challenge: explain complicated concepts without math. Can you guess what this slide is about?

Looking at the current homepage of #ComplexityThoughts it is clear that I don't like #ComplexSystems at all.

Make Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence Again! (Just a thought for journal editors, peer reviewers, journalists... 😉)

È bello cercare la bellezza nascosta dove sembra esserci solo buio. È bello stupirsi ancora una volta, nonostante tutto. Cintura e Nebulosa di Orione (ovvero come rilassarsi a LBT, a fine notte, dopo le osservazioni). Che la serata sia un abbraccio 🫂

Understanding the process that favored the emergence of life is not just about looking backward to 🌎’s first dawn: it’s about learning how complexity itself begins and how it might arise again, elsewhere. Life as a cascade of transitions? #ComplexityThoughts manlius.substack.com/p/when-matte...

Absolutely stunning how media give so much voice to a scientist talking about international conspiracies to hide the "truth" about a gigantic alien spaceship, publishing "articles" on social media. While no voice is given to scientists publishung everyday evidence on real pressing problems. 🤦

In Padua on Nov 20th? I’ll give a public non-technical talk, in the beautiful Sala del Romanino at the Eremitani Museum In 40 minutes, we’ll travel from 3340 B.C. to 2100, exploring how demons, oracles & models have helped humans make sense of the world. Join! 🔗 www.eventbrite.it/e/biglietti-...

In Padua on Nov 20th? I’ll give a public non-technical talk, in the beautiful Sala del Romanino at the Eremitani Museum In 40 minutes, we’ll travel from 3340 B.C. to 2100, exploring how demons, oracles & models have helped humans make sense of the world. Join! 🔗 www.eventbrite.it/e/biglietti-...

According to decades of behavioral experiments, humans defy logic. Maybe that's not irrationality; maybe it's better math waiting to be found. Or just to be used to describe non-classical decisions, w/o need for quantum brains. #ComplexityThoughts manlius.substack.com/p/the-unreas...

According to decades of behavioral experiments, humans defy logic. Maybe that's not irrationality; maybe it's better math waiting to be found. Or just to be used to describe non-classical decisions, w/o need for quantum brains. #ComplexityThoughts manlius.substack.com/p/the-unreas...

By replying to Elise below, we could generate a nice thread.

The seven sisters were literally dancing over the full moon light. Not the best conditions for taking pics, but I tried anyway. I can confirm conditions were not good: their blue lights got destroyed by interference with the moon ones. #Astrophotography #M45 #Pleiades

Cooperation isn’t weakness, it’s strategy. Axelrod’s rules remind us: fairness, reciprocity and humility often outcompete envy and cleverness. In complexity, often simplicity wins.

Thinking we’re the peak of civilization, right? Well, 3,000 years ago early Maya communities built a landscape cosmogram (a vast earthly map of the cosmos) without kings, armies, coercion. Collective imagination and cooperation shaped order in their universe. ✨ www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

TL;DR: Even the most advanced language models crumble on first-person false beliefs, showing sharp accuracy drops and revealing that their “understanding” of others’ minds is still shallow pattern mimicry, not genuine epistemic reasoning. www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Another casualty of the LLM revolution. In "arXiv’s CS category, review articles and position papers must now be accepted at a journal or a conference and complete successful peer review."

TL;DR: Even the most advanced language models crumble on first-person false beliefs, showing sharp accuracy drops and revealing that their “understanding” of others’ minds is still shallow pattern mimicry, not genuine epistemic reasoning. www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Here we go with another drawing, for the same upcoming talk (more info soon, stay tuned). In the meanwhile, you can help me by describing this image: what's that? CC: @ricardsole.bsky.social ___ PS: The updated version of the previous drawing, with an explanation, is in the next post of the 🧵

"Paint the sky with stars" ____ Perseus double cluster ~7100 light years away 60' expsosure (180x20") Nikon D750+Nikkor 300mm f/5.6 ISO320. No 🔭 Skyguider pro. Neighbors' lights like there was no tomorrow. Bortle 7 sky. Stacked, crop.

What connects molecules, ecosystems, brains and societies? Exactly 1y ago, I captured that question in this video, showing how simple mechanisms generate the complexity of life and behavior. Now heading towards the 3rd birthday of #ComplexityThoughts: unbelievable. #Complexity #NetworkScience

A microscopic organism can survive the vacuum of space: yet our infrastructures collapse under a summer storm. Why? 👉 Because structure isn’t enough. Resilience depends on functionality. And we need a lot of network science to grasp it. 📖 manlius.substack.com/p/making-sen... #ComplexityThoughts

Revolutionary ideas.

Really?!? Did we need this at all? When will academia end its obsession with indices? They've fueled quantity over quality for decades, leading to publish-or-perish, authorship games, data fabrication,... Come on 🤦 h/t: @seanmcarroll.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/d41...

A microscopic organism can survive the vacuum of space: yet our infrastructures collapse under a summer storm. Why? 👉 Because structure isn’t enough. Resilience depends on functionality. And we need a lot of network science to grasp it. 📖 manlius.substack.com/p/making-sen... #ComplexityThoughts

Eventually, I did it. Comet Lemmon! 💫 Nice to read again the history of the attempts in the last weeks. Now, I am almost satisfied with the result: still something to fix, though. ___ About 35' integrated exposure, stacked, Nikon D750 + Nikkor 300mm f/5.6

Not the easiest session. If you are curious to know what it means to take pictures from home, this should give a good idea

Oops I did it again. I could not resist: perfect sky after 2 rainy days; no clouds now; just in plain sight from my backyard. Fingers crossed @scrutacieli.bsky.social Raw pictures below, not yet processed (of course) 👇

“we might add “natural cooperation” as a third fundamental principle of evolution beside mutation and natural selection” 🧪 #ComplexSystems #Evolution www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

“we might add “natural cooperation” as a third fundamental principle of evolution beside mutation and natural selection” 🧪 #ComplexSystems #Evolution www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

In the '30s of the past century, the Sicilian physicist Ettore Majorana wrote an article about the value of statistical laws in physics and in social sciences. A pioneering non-technical work. I am wondering if successive ('40s-'50s) “sociophysics” papers are related. arxiv.org/abs/0709.3537

Amazed by chatGPT 🤯 It has just recommended me to read this paper: Perra, N. & De Domenico, M. (2023). Multilayer Network Epidemiology. Nature Reviews Physics, 5, 736–753. Facts: * I'd love to have a paper with @netscience.bsky.social but I haven't * There is no Multilayer Network Epidemiology

Urgent: can someone at the 🇺🇸 White House check if we’re facing an epidemic of exoplanets? Where will this lead? Are we safe? Should we flatten the curve before it spreads? Asking for a friend who’' extremely concerned about alien invasion, especially after recent rumors on 3I/ATLAS.

Did you know that a simple proof that the speed of light is finite, the universe had a beginning and is expanding, is that the night sky is dark? This is known as Olbers’ paradox, which puzzled astronomers for centuries. 1/2

Oh, this 💯 In a world with AI, we should reduce paperwork and delegate to machines most of the tasks that could be automated within universities. Indeed, we should invest on what's the added value of professors: the time they can spend with students, as humans (both sides).

Oh, this 💯 In a world with AI, we should reduce paperwork and delegate to machines most of the tasks that could be automated within universities. Indeed, we should invest on what's the added value of professors: the time they can spend with students, as humans (both sides).

Did you know that a simple proof that the speed of light is finite, the universe had a beginning and is expanding, is that the night sky is dark? This is known as Olbers’ paradox, which puzzled astronomers for centuries. 1/2

arXiv alert! 📄🚨 A review paper about the physics of news, rumors, and opinions arxiv.org/abs/2510.15053 w @manlius.bsky.social @sarawalk.bsky.social Guido Cadarelli et al.

📸 Nearly every dot in this James Webb image isn’t a star: it’s a galaxy, each with billions of stars and even more worlds. And this? It’s just a tiny corner of the observable universe. A short thread 🧵1/

If there is something, a signal of humankind, that could reach other civilizations in the outer space, I do hope it’s this. As a species we’re astonishingly creative and capable of amazing things. There were no lasagne encoded in the Big Bang. youtu.be/rfUEstWJUkA?...

📸 Nearly every dot in this James Webb image isn’t a star: it’s a galaxy, each with billions of stars and even more worlds. And this? It’s just a tiny corner of the observable universe. A short thread 🧵1/

3rd and final attempt. The signal processing was tough: I managed to keep the signals clean (a nightmare) at the price of stars intrinsic light, somehow Overall i am satisfied with this 15 min integrated exposure, given all the limitations and issues I am subject to #Astrophotography #LemmonComet

Qualche info per chi volesse tentare di fotografare la cometa C/2025 A6 Lemmon, che in questi ultimi giorni di ottobre raggiungerà la massima luminosità e si potrà osservare a tra ovest e nord-ovest dopo il tramonto.

New attempt, much better session (starting the prep 1h before the darkness, this time). Fingers crossed.

Second attempt, but processing is tough. This is about 3 min integrated exposure.

Outcome of the very first attempt. I had to manage any sort of issue, including an unexpected unstable balance of the gear in the exact direction of the comet. Neighbors house edge and external light. Still, here we go. Hopefully will improve in the next days. 💫 #LemmonComet #C2025A6

Maybe I caught it 💫 @scrutacieli.bsky.social

And the winner is..

Office view, #autumn